Medicament reservoirs such as ampoules, cartridges, or vials are generally known. Such reservoirs are especially used for medicaments that may be self administered by a patient. For example, with respect to insulin, a patient suffering from diabetes may require a certain amount of insulin to either be injected via a pen type injection syringe or infused via a pump. With respect to certain known reusable pen type drug delivery devices, a patient may load a reservoir containing the insulin into a proximal end of a reservoir holder. After the reservoir has been correctly loaded, the user may then select or may be called upon to select a dose of the medicament. Multiple doses may be dosed from the reservoir. The doses may be fixed or varied by the user, i.e. the amount of the medicament expelled during an injection may be fixed or variable. The medical delivery device, i.e. the drug delivery device may be a disposable device or a reusable device. Where the drug delivery device comprises a reusable device, once the reservoir is empty, the reservoir holder is disconnected from the drug delivery device and the empty reservoir is removed and replaced with a new filled reservoir. Most suppliers of such reservoirs recommend that the user disposes of the empty reservoirs properly. Alternatively, where the drug delivery device comprises a disposable device, once the reservoir is empty, the user is recommended to dispose of the entire device and obtain a new device having a properly filled reservoir.
Such known self administration systems, especially reusable systems requiring the removal of empty reservoirs and reloading of filled reservoirs, have certain limitations. For example, in certain generally known systems, a user may simply remove a reservoir and load a new reservoir into the delivery system without the drug delivery device or without the reservoir or reservoir holder having any mechanism of preventing unintentional removal of a reservoir and/or subsequent cross use of an incorrect reservoir. In particular, patients with limited manual dexterity may cause unintentional removal of a reservoir during use of the device. This may result in malfunction of the device and/or unnecessary puzzlement of the patients.
Furthermore, certain known drug delivery devices do not present any mechanism for determining if the correct type of medicament within the reservoir should be used with that particular drug delivery system. This potential problem could be exacerbated given that certain elderly patients, such as those suffering from diabetes, may have limited manual dexterity. Identifying an incorrect medicament is quite important, since the administration of an incorrect medicament or the administration of a potentially incorrect dose of a medicament such as a short acting insulin in lieu of a long acting insulin or an incorrect amount of insulin could result in injury or even death.
Some drug delivery devices or systems may use a color coding scheme to assist a user or care giver in selecting the correct reservoir to be used with a drug delivery device. However, such color coding schemes pose challenges to certain users, especially those users suffering from poor eyesight or color blindness: a situation that can be quite prevalent in patients suffering from diabetes.
Another concern that may arise with such disposable reservoirs is that these reservoirs are manufactured in essentially standard sizes and must comply with certain recognized local and international standards. Consequently, such reservoirs are typically supplied in standard sized reservoirs (e.g., 3 ml reservoirs). Therefore, there may be a variety of reservoirs supplied by a number of different suppliers and containing different medicaments but which may fit a single drug delivery device. As just one example, a first reservoir containing a first medicament from a first supplier may fit a medical delivery device provided by a second supplier. As such, a user might inadvertently load and then dispense an incorrect medicament (such as a rapid or basal type of insulin) into a drug delivery device without being aware that the drug delivery device was perhaps neither designed nor intended to be used with such a reservoir and/or such a type of medicament.
As such, there is a growing desire from users, health care providers, care givers, regulatory entities, and medical device suppliers to reduce the potential risk of a user unintentionally removing a reservoir and/or loading a reservoir with an incorrect drug type into a drug delivery device. There is also, therefore, a desire to reduce the risk of dispensing an incorrect medicament or a wrong concentration of a medicament from such a drug delivery device.
There is, therefore, a general need to physically dedicate a reservoir to its medication or drug type and design a medication delivery device that enables easy mounting and removal of a reservoir or reservoir holder and nevertheless prevents unwanted reservoir cross use and/or unintentional removal of the reservoir or reservoir holder.
There is also a general need to provide a dedicated reservoir and/or a dedicated reservoir holder that is difficult to tamper with so that the reservoir may not be compromised in that the reservoir can be used with an unauthorized drug or drug delivery device. Because such reservoirs or reservoir holders may be difficult to tamper with, they may also reduce the risk of counterfeiting: i.e., making it more difficult for counterfeiters to provide unregulated counterfeit medicament carrying products.
Therefore, the general problem to be solved by the present disclosure is to provide a reservoir, a reservoir holder and a drug delivery system which facilitate an administration of reservoirs and/or reservoir holders.